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After being allegedly sexually assaulted at the age of 15 by four boys and subsequently bullied, 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide last week.

Some of Rehtaeh Parsons' friends remembered her as an animal lover, and many pictures on the memorial page show Parsons with various dogs. (Courtesy of Facebook)

Rehtaeh Parsons, 17, killed herself 18 months after she was allegedly raped by four boys in her small town of Cole Harbour, N.S. (Courtesy Facebook)

Rehtaeh Parsons, right, shares a drink with her mother, Leah. “The justice system failed her," she said following Rehtaeh's suicide last week. (Courtesy of Facebook)

Rehtaeh Parsons, centre, with her mother, Leah, and an unidentified man. (Courtesy of Facebook)

In one of Rehtaeh Parsons’ final posts on her own Facebook wall, she repeated a famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr.: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
(Courtesy of Facebook)

Leah Parsons says her daughter was never the same after the night four boys sexually assaulted her.

And when one of the boys circulated a cellphone picture of the alleged sexual assault around their Nova Scotia high school, Rehtaeh Parsons immediately dropped out. She lost many of her friends, and depression quickly set in.

After an 18-month battle with suicidal thoughts, Rehtaeh Parsons finally took her own life last week.

“Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought that raping a 15-year-old girl was OK and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun,” her mother, Leah, wrote in a lengthy Facebook post on the girl’s memorial page.

“The justice system failed her. Those are the people that took the life of my beautiful girl.”

Nova Scotia’s Justice Department is looking for ways to review the grieving mother’s questions about the RCMP’s handling of her daughter’s allegations of sexual assault, The Canadian Press reported.

After initially saying there would not be a review, Justice Minister Ross Landry changed his position late Tuesday night, asking his department to present him with options for a review.

“In regards to the issue of second-guessing the police at every case, no, I’m not going to do that.”

Leah Parsons said the ordeal began when her daughter went to a house party with a friend in November of 2011. She was 15 at the time.

“In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral.”

The photo was seen by almost all the students at Parsons’ school, her mother said, and students would call her a “slut” when she walked through the halls. It got so bad that Parsons chose to move to nearby Halifax.

Meanwhile, police looked into the alleged sexual assault and “viral” photograph that had made rounds through the little town of Cole Harbour. After a lengthy investigation, police told Parsons’ mother that no charges would be laid — despite the cellphone picture, there wasn’t enough evidence.

Parsons drifted deeper into depression. She was hospitalized for six weeks, visited counsellors and started smoking pot to numb her suicidal thoughts.

On the night of April 4, Parsons had an unexpected outburst. She ran to the washroom and locked herself in. It’s unclear what had upset her. By the time her mother broke in, it was too late. Parsons had hanged herself.

In light of her daughter’s death, Parsons took to Facebook to make sure her daughter’s story would be heard. Since it was written yesterday, the post has been shared more than 2,500 times.

“She made my life complete. When Rehtaeh was born I dedicated everything to her and promised her the world. Others in this world took that away from her,” her mother wrote.

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